Category: Email Marketing

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Email Marketing Essentials Workshop: Wed 15 March 2017 in Tauranga, NZ

Join me for my workshop entitled: “How to create emails that get opened, get read, and get acted on”.

  • When?: 8.30am to 10.00am Wednesday 15 Mar 2017
  • Where?: Tauranga Chamber of Commerce, Bay Central, 65 Chapel Street, Tauranga
  • Cost?: $25 for chamber members, or $35 for non-chamber members
  • Register

Email gives you the most direct way of communicating with your customers, and for converting prospects to sales … which is why the most savvy content marketers have no intention of giving it up any time soon.

It’s also amazingly cost-effective. With an ROI of around 3,800% (that’s $38 return for every $1 spent), email more than pays for itself. It’s what you use when you want to move from “conversation to commerce.”

Join me for this fast-paced 90 minute session which includes: Continue reading “Email Marketing Essentials Workshop: Wed 15 March 2017 in Tauranga, NZ”

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Email Newsletters: 6 Tips To Get Your Email Newsletters Opened, Read, And Acted On

Having a list of email address of people who want to hear from you is gold.

The secret to effective email newsletters is to mimic a one-to-one email conversation as closely as possible.

Any elements that make the recipient suspect that your message is one-to-many will reduce the impact of your message.

There are 6 questions you can ask yourself.

Continue reading “Email Newsletters: 6 Tips To Get Your Email Newsletters Opened, Read, And Acted On”

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“I Think It’s Too Long, Can You Make It Shorter?” A Phrase I Dread

I do quite a bit of copywriting:

  • email proposals
  • email newsletters
  • sales pages on websites
  • blog articles
  • direct response letters
  • and the occasional fax (I’m joking about the fax, it’s not the nineties anymore)

The pieces of work I create are as long as they need to be and often include all of the following components:

  • Headline: A headline dripping with benefits that leaves the reader hungry to read the rest
  • Highly personalised: In email newsletters I like to mention the recipients first name 7 times. In direct mail my record is mentioning their first name 16 times
  • Chatty and friendly: Written in a one-on-one style as if the two of us were sitting down over a coffee and having a chat. This decreases the distance between you and I
  • Compelling content: That tells a story and focuses on what you get out of the deal. It even addresses your objections before they form in your mind
  • A limited time offer: “Respond before 5pm Friday”, and/or a limited number of customers “Only 10 positions available”
  • A call to action: Eg choose between 3 packages with ascending prices and value. “Call 0800 123 123 to secure your position”

I put my heart and soul into this work.

I work on it like it’s a piece of art. It just has to be perfect before I’m happy to release it on the world.

And time and time again this work pays off, because it generates the responses/action/sales goals that I set for those pieces.

But sometimes, a client comes back and says that dreaded phrase “I think it’s too long, can you make it shorter?”

arrrrgghh

There are 2 reasons why clients say “I think it’s too long”:

  1. Because they are not in the target audience (I’m not trying to sell your services back to you, I’m selling them to your prospects. It’s no wonder you aren’t captivated)
  2. They are bored of simple explanations of what they do. This is what prospects that have never heard of you need, but you might be bored of simplifying your story

Because the fact is, if something is interesting to an individual, they will keep reading and keep reading and keep reading.

They are thirsty for the content, and they can’t stop because it tastes like cool water as they read.

Most novels take 4, 6, 8, 10 hours to read, right?

If you had just started a novel by your favourite author that you’d been waiting months to get hold of, and I told you that I had a one page summary in a sealed envelope and I tried to give it to you would you yell at me “Keep that away from me!! Leave me to read my book in peace!”

Sure you would.

Length isn’t important.

It’s the journey.

It’s the story.

So the next time you read an article in a newspaper, or an email newsletter, or draft copy from someone who is helping you write an email newsletter, and your first thought is “I think it’s too long”. Check yourself.

Are you in the target audience?

If not, keep your opinion to yourself.

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Email Marketing: 7 Reasons Why It’s Cool, 3 Reasons It Sucks, 7 Tips To Make It Work

Why are you attracted to the idea of “email marketing”?

7 Reasons Why Email Marketing Seems Cool

  1. Because sending emails is cheap (or free). It’s a cheap way to keep in contact with your customers
  2. It’s scalable – if you double or triple the number of customers on your email database there is no extra effort for you
  3. Because it reminds your customers about what you can do for them – it keeps your brand in their minds, it builds familiarity, relationship, trust
  4. Because you could sell something directly
  5. Because it’s fast. You can get your first response within minutes
  6. Because it’s measurable. You can test various headlines and offers
  7. Because it’s easy. You can do it yourself

3 Reasons Why Email Marketing Actually Sucks

  1. Because most email software is actually hard to use (despite what they claim!)
  2. Because it’s hard coming up with ideas for new content every week/month (exhausting!)
  3. Because building up your list of subscribers is slow (and why do people keep unsubscribing anyway? Annoying!)

7 Components to Make Your Email Marketing Work For You

My philosophy with email marketing is very simple:

  1. Make it obvious why someone should subscribe
    • Don’t expect sign-ups just because your email newsletter exists!
    • Provide at least 3 reasons why they should subscribe. If you can’t think of 3 good reasons, pack up and go home, email marketing is not for you
  2. Make your emails really plain
    • Which types of emails do spend most attention to: Ones with fancy graphics and big logos, or ones that are plain text? Plain text! You always read those first and leave the fancy newsletters for last, if you have time
    • No header graphics. No logo. You have your “from” address and your email signature to remind them of your brand. That’s enough. (Remember, this email is about them, not about you!)
  3. Make your emails really personal
    • Make the email a 1 on 1 conversation between you and your customer/client
    • Use the recipients first name at least 5 times. Not just “Hi Bob” at the beginning!
  4. Make your emails as long as they need to be
    • State your point in the subject line, expand on the point in the body, close with a call to action
    • Tell a story that can be read from start to finish
    • Use subheadings and bullet points so readers can scan for things that interest them
    • Include a photo or 2 if you can. Even better, a short 30 second video summarising your message
  5. Make it really easy to subscribe. Make it even easier to unsubscribe
    • Create links to your sign-up form everywhere: on your website, in your email signature etc
    • Put your unsubscribe link clearly at the bottom, or even better, as the very first sentence of your email – you only want people who are really interested in what you have to say so let the others go
  6. Brainstorm 12 months worth of content ideas before you send your first email
    • Get your friends, family and existing customers to help you generate a huge list of ideas
  7. Make your emails really cheap
    • My favourite email marketing software is MailChimp. It’s not super-easy to use but it is super cheap: completely free up to 1000 subscribers and 6000 emails per month

Your Thoughts?

So have you tried email marketing yet? If not, why not?

If so, are you getting the results you want?

What do you think of these tips?

Share your thoughts below.

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Email Newsletters: 10 Tips For Designing & Building Your Email Newsletters

Great advice from Smashing Magazine about how to design and build your email newsletters:

  1. Respect your reader. Don’t waste their time or attention.
  2. Ask nicely first.
  3. Focus on relevance.
  4. Design with a goal in mind, so that you’ll know if it worked.
  5. Make unsubscribing easy.
  6. Code like it’s 1999 (literally) and use inline CSS.
  7. Always include a plain text version.
  8. Don’t assume that images will be viewed.
  9. Follow the law.
  10. Test everything before sending, because you can’t take it back.

Read the entire article: Design and Build Email Newsletters Without Losing Your Mind (and Soul)